Will this be 'Overtraining'?

Question

Right now I am doing a 5x5 workout 3 times a week. However I want to workout more frequently (maybe 4-5 days a week).

My current workout routine is something like this:

Monday (Squat, Deadlift), Wednesday (Bench Press, Overhead Press, Bent-Over Rows) Friday (Squat and Deadlift again)

Since squat and deadlift workout a lot of upper body muscles, would changing my current routine to something like below be considered as 'over training'?

Monday (Squat, Deadlift), Tuesday (Bench Press, Overhead Press), Thursday (Squat, Deadlift) Friday(Benchpress, Bent-Over Rows)

I do some minor isolation exercises after doing the major exercises each workout.

So what do you think community? Will the big compound movements exercises be too much for my body to handle for 4 days a week?

Answer 1

If you can't go into the gym and squat heavy twice a day, every day, you aren't overtrained, you're undertrained. (John Broz)

And

Why is it that those most inclined to worry and ask about “overtraining” are about as likely to set a new record in the Olympic Decathlon as they are to ever overtrain? (Greg Glassman)

Your question is very subjective, so I'll give an anecdotal answer.

Short answer: no. That's not overtraining.

Long answer: plenty of people do split routines that require at least two gym visits per day, often 6 or 7 days per week. Many Olympic lifters max out on their backsquat 13 times per week, every morning and every night. Professional and college athletes train all day, most days. The biggest, strongest guys I know lift twice per day, almost every day.

That said, these people are professionals. If you try doing that caliber of routine and without giving yourself at least a good 2-8 weeks of on-ramping, you will snap yourself up. (You'll probably snap yourself up anyway.)

As training volume increases, importance of good form increases. If you don't use good form you absolutely will get injured, especially with those deadlifts in there. (Sidebar: lots of people don't deadlift because it's an unnecessary risk. I'd swap them out for cleans or something one of the days, personally.) Get enough sleep and eat enough and you'll eventually find you'll want even more training volume.

Answer 2

It really depends on your goals and programming. The answer could be yes or no.

With my current routine, for example, I dead lift, front squat and bench press three times a week, however, I only complete 10 reps of each lift per session (broken up into 2-3 sets, rarely more than 85% 1 RM).

Without getting into the fine details of my current program, I'm mainly targeting strength gains (borrowing from some of the core concepts of Dan John's "Easy Strength" musings). In the said routine, I could care less about hypertrophy.

If you're targeting hypertrophy (muscle growth), completing a high volume of reps, and/or approaching near failure during sets, you could find yourself in an "overtrained" state pretty quickly (though, as Daniel implied, you'll probably get injured first). In that case, I'd strongly consider completing heavy, compound lifts (ie DL, Squats...) once a week, and work from there.

It's hard to completely answer your question without some more details, but if you're really concerned with overtraining prevention, get yourself an HRV (heart rate variability) monitor, keep a log, and go big when your body tells you it's ok.

Have fun!

EDIT:

I see you added that you're doing a 5x5 (sorry if I just missed it the first time around).

You could do a 5x5 approach over four days if you wanted, and complete big lifts, like DLs and squats, twice a week. If you're employing this method, a key element to consider is how you progress the load in between sets. Take this guy's program for example (the second program of the two):

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/wotw56.htm

He builds 10-15% each set, until he's finally lifting near his 5 RM in the final set. He does his over 3 days, but you could easily spread it out over 4-5.